WHO ethics meeting

However, two Americans and a Spanish priest, who caught the diease while working in Africa, are being treated with an untested drug called ZMapp, which has reportedly shown promising results. This has stirred debate about the rights and wrongs of using unproven medication, and the need for guidelines on its use.

DW: Was it ethically wrong for this unproven drug to be administered to these three patients?

Torsten Feldt: It think it was not wrong to give it to them, but we must be very clear that those drugs have so far not been tested in humans, but the data and the results from animal trials were really promising. So after really thinking about the ethics and evaluating the risks and the possible benefits, it became clear that it was worth trying those drugs.

Dr Jeremy Farrar, director of the British medical research charity Wellcome Trust, has called for Africans to be given access to such experimental medication. Do you share his views?

I think in the long run, yes, but we still only have data from three patients, and even there we don't have complete data yet. Their conditions might have improved, but that doesn't necessarily tell us that the ZMapp antibody mixture is actually working. This is not enough (in the way of data). We are very reluctant to support administering the drug broadly in Africa, where we would have no means of controlling risks and side effects. There would also be very limited means of receiving data on the efficacy of the drug.

But bearing in mind that people are dying wouldn't it be advisable, or even wise, to just give them whatever can somehow help them?

Yes. And I think the WHO is on track, but this really needs to be evaluated carefully. One other thing is that it is not possible to provide the quantities of the drug needed for hundreds of patients right now. So there is this logistical problem. But it is a good thing that the WHO has started to clear up the ethical aspects so that progress can be made with treatment for Africans. You also have to realize that there are other measures to control the epidemic which might be a priority right now.

But where is there so little research, or interest, in developing a drug for Ebola, or a vaccine for that matter. The virus has been around for quite a long time, hasn't it?

Drug research is a matter of money - always. The pharmaceutical industry has very little interest because the case numbers are very small, even though there have been ongoing, minor outbreaks for decades. Financially it is uninteresting and the drugs which are in development now were only made possible through cooperation with the US Defense Department.

Dr Torsten Feldt works for the Department of Infectious Diseases at Düsseldorf Universtiy Clinic

Interviewer: Chrispin Mwakideu